usual routine
by sasuukeh
Summary: they don't need to say it when there is a routine with a cup of mocha latte with extra cream instead. —hieibotan, au.


**notes:** because i ship it ;) it's hard keeping hiei in character...

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usual routine  
_hiei & botan_

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**i.**

"One mocha latte with extra cream, please!"

Hiei mundanely looks at her, regards her with a quiet slant of his eyes, and he thinks if she had better sense in her, she would've frowned at him for his utter lack of words—but Hiei is always silent and quiet and _broody_, and Botan knows not to push his buttons lest she'd grow curious about how dirt would taste like in her mouth.

He grunts at her instead, offering a noncommittal nod before retreating to the machines behind him where he can salvage at least five minutes of silent time to himself from her babbling. The hums of the contraptions are soothing to his ears, especially after a bustling afternoon from yesterday's rush; he thinks of rumbling rivers and he's calm again.

She talks again, about him this time, and Hiei is tempted to snatch a coffee filter just to shove in her mouth—and it would be a good deed, because he'd be doing everyone a favor by shushing her trap up for more than five minutes. "You know, you should talk more, Hiei."

She politely takes her beverage from his reluctant hands, and they fall into a routine of him ringing up how much she owes him and her peering into her wallet: the usual things they do when she's here. "Nonsense," he dismissively scoffs, swiping the coins off her palm. "You and I are well aware of my sentence quota by now."

Hiei doesn't talk more than necessary—he's not one to go up to someone and submerge himself in mindless chatter like Botan. If she was lucky, Botan can hear him utter something, maybe half-politely and half-heartedly and half-reluctantly, to a customer and that would be it. Which is actually a good thing. Last time Botan had came over, Hiei remembered she was a witness to an unfortunate exchange he had with his boss, Mukuro, that _Hiei, I've received a few complaints from customers that the "scary man" at the register counter won't stop glaring at them. Do try to work on your appeal next time._

Botan laughed that day, on the verge of tears, until he had threatened in his usual low menacing voice that—Botan starts to mimic-mock him at this point, how dare her—_I will make sure you spend your last days in a world of hurt and agony_ and whatever else sounded horrifyingly grotesque of that nature.

Apparently, it grew on her. Hiei sometimes wonder if she is all right in the head, but maybe she isn't if she has the gall to keep bringing up his social skills like they were talking about the weather. "Oh, come now!" Her hands swats the air in front of her, and she takes a small sip of her mocha latte. "It's a wonder how you still have this job. You don't even greet your customers or tell them to have a good day—nothing!" If her hands weren't burdened with the cup of latte, he knew she would've waved them in the air nonsensically.

"No kidding," he says, flat.

There's no line behind her, so she continues babbling, much to his displeasure and he wonders why the world hates him so damn much. "No kidding?" Botan echoes him, rolling her eyes. "You don't even know what a joke is, do you?"

Hiei contemplates, briefly, how badly his second-degree burns would be if he spilled freshly-brewed coffee on himself just to get her to _shut up_. "That is hardly relevant to anything. I fail to see your point, if you even have one."

She looks at him, nose scrunched and brow furrowed and lips curling downward in a sour way, and Hiei thinks of that one drenched cat he passed by during the morning on his way here. "See, there you go again. Being such a grouch! Honestly, Hiei…" She sips at her drink again, and he thinks, half-seriously, to himself if it would catch on fire if he willed it enough. "How do you expect to make friends? You could be, at least, a bit more friendly."

"I didn't kick you out," he points out, and deliberately fails to include _yet _in the sentence because that would put her into overdrive and he doesn't like having migraines so early in the day.

"But you were _thinking_ it, weren't you?" Botan sticks her tongue out, and he rolls his eyes for the umpteenth time of this unbearable day.

Hiei wishes he could curse Mukuro for readjusting his schedule; because now, he needs to deal with this woman longer than he would like. Yet, he doesn't because Mukuro never really deserved any of that when she's always been so morally gray and fair. That doesn't mean his life _isn't_ unfair. "Why are you still here?"

"What does it look like? Chatting with an old friend, of course!" She winks and pulls one of those feline-looking faces, and he has to ask himself if they were really around the same age. "I heard you've been busy, but so am I. Hope you can find it in yourself to forgive moi for giving you more customers: namely, yours truly!"

"I'm on duty."

"But you're not very busy right now—I don't see a line behind me," she singsongs annoyingly, perkily.

"Even the mangled, starved cats outside the alleyway can carry a tune better than you," he sneers, in hopes that she'll finally flee from him but she doesn't and he's terribly disappointed in himself.

Botan sips her cup until half-emptied, nonplussed. "I should be offended, but you also indirectly complimented something for a change in your own verbally-constipated way so actually, I'm quite happy with that." She beams at him, her grin showing off her pearly-white teeth brushed to perfection, and he sees some sunlight reflect off her.

He smirks, dryly and humorless—maybe it's just to indulge her, he thinks to himself.

"Ah!" She looks at him with inspection, and then she nods. Hiei is worried for himself if she's concocting some lame plan because it would most likely involve him in some strange twisted way. "There." Her fingers points at him, at his face, and he crosses his eyes to center a look at how pointy her nail is. "You should smile more."

"I don't—"

"Yeah, yeah: you _smirk_, not smile." She mimics him from earlier, rolling her eyes. "But it looks nicer on you. I"m serious, a smile could go a long way," she advises in her matter-of-factly voice that he hated hearing. It makes her sound something like a bigot. "Think about it, 'kay?" Then she tromps away, half-filled cup of mocha latte in her hands and a purse over her shoulders, and she's out the door before Hiei could say anything.

Hiei stares at the spot she had stood at. "Hn."

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**ii.**

"Oh, thank you!" Botan beams at him from her secluded table somewhere nearby the counter where Hiei often is stationed at. "You even included the cream, and I forgot I never even mentioned cream this time."

"Hn," grunts Hiei, giving her a shrug that seemed to say _We do not speak of this to anyone_. "Hard not to forget when your insufferable sweet-tooth kept requesting for it during your prior visits." After, maybe, three seconds, he adds, "I simply have good memory."

"And thanks to your good memory, it has saved my mocha latte from being too plain!"

He sneers, unfriendly. "_Someone _has to remember." He rather enjoys the scandalized look she gives him in return, indignancy scribbled everywhere on her face and if he could find it in himself to laugh at it, he would.

"You are rude as ever," Botan finally sighs, setting her mocha aside as she overlooks the binder (_which is an ugly, horrid, blinding pink that Hiei just needs to grimace at_) of many papers hazardously in front of her. Hiei doesn't move, so she looks up and raises an eyebrow as if some sort of apocalyptic event would spring itself anytime soon because _why would Hiei _want _to be near her?_ He resists a scoff. "Can I help you, even though I'm pretty sure you don't want my help?"

He crosses his arms upon his chest, and eyes her papers. "I'm merely wondering what sort of mess you are involving yourself in this time, woman." He sees messy scrawls of bubbly handwritten letters and sentences from his line of sight, and he nearly clicks his tongue.

When a smile comes across on her lips, Botan looks sunlit and glowing. "Keiko appointed me as her wedding planner!" she tells him, excitedly, a rush of joy coursing through her swift hand movements of shuffling the papers concerning decorations and interior decor. He quietly sits on a chair at her table in the midst of her driveling because he knows it'll take a while and he unintentionally assigned this weary fate to himself the moment he asked her about it. "So far, I've taken care of what flowers to bring to decorate the background, and the music! You can never go wrong with lovely piano music: every wedding needs that special magical song!"

_Blah, blah, blah,_ Hiei half-heartedly hears. She talks of trivial things like boutonnieres for the groomsmen to wear, the angling of the lights when the ceremony takes place, guest seating, how much food to order—silly, silly things that he dislikes.

"I placed an order for the other decorations already with assigned color schemes—white, pink, and soft pastels! Keiko doesn't say much, but I know a pastel color lover when I see one," she continues to ramble on to his ears as he disinterestedly looks. "The invitations, they'll be a beautiful gold with floral borders! I've seen the samples from last week and they're so pretty—"

"Get on with it," he finds himself cutting in, weary. His fingers itch to rub at his temples.

Botan doesn't look a bit disturbed or irritated for the interference. "Right, right," she pointedly says, idly, and grabs a golden stack of cards. "Speaking of invitations, here's yours, Hiei."

She hands it over to him with stars in her eyes; he lost track of how many her eyes held as he loosely accepts the card and inwardly scowls that he would have to make sure his old tuxedo still fits. (_Like he would really be caught dead in that thing, but it's still Yusuke's wedding, so Hiei will grudgingly bear with it even if it feels like a lost cause to him._)

Botan chimes in her unusually-perky way, "Don't be late! Groomsmen are supposed to be there early."

Hiei sighs.

"That's the spirit."

"Sarcasm does not become of you," he surly comments, giving her his best no-nonsense face that needed no effort whatsoever. She makes a face, one that looked like she'd skin him alive if she had the skills to, and really, Hiei thinks it only makes her look tenfold stupider and sillier. "Neither do your faces."

"Not all of us can pull it off as well as you do!" she begins to pout, busying her hands with more stacks of papers: this time, centered on finalizing on the dates and dress options. Botan dives her attention onto a checklist of meeting times with the other bridesmaids (_Hiei only knows this because he sees the fool's sister's name scribbled on it, as well as Yukina_) and she starts to mumble to herself about jewelry sets to seek for and other things he really doesn't care for.

"Keiko's dress is a stunning white, so maybe us bridesmaids could wear… Maybe a soft pink?" Her head shakes. "No; that's the color of the roses set in the backdrop. We can't blend in too much—even bridesmaids need to stand out a bit." By the end of the day, Hiei would probably need a new pair of eyes because his keep rolling today. "Maybe blue? No no—it would match way too much to my hair, and same with Yukina's hair!" When Botan finally gathers enough sense to look up from her loud self-murmurings, she asks him, "Hiei, what colors would go well on this?"

She shows him a brief sketch of a dress, labeled _bridesmaid dress no.1_, and she has several colors experimentally sketched on the margins. He doesn't even know what he's supposed to say. "I'm not the best person to ask."

Eyes skeptical, she gives him a look. "True… You wear all black. Do you not like colors?" And before he somehow finds a way to make use of the straws and stab her in the eye, she hastily amends with unease, "Still, we're friends and I trust your judgment, so maybe it wouldn't hurt to give me a harmless input…?"

Back sinking further against the chair, he leans and becomes silent. His eyes become burdened with the sight of the sunlight outside. "Yellow."

"Yellow?"

He shrugs. He sees the light hit against her and that is all he really sees at the moment—he does not comment on how the yellow would bring out her eyes because he would rather _suffer_ than offer compliments.

"All right, yellow…" Botan begins to scribble some yellow onto the dress with a spare highlighter she carries and she studies it. "Not bad, actually. You have a good eye."

"Hn." His eyes absently look at her piles of papers for a while. "Your drink is getting cold," he simply tells her when she starts sketching out more bridesmaid dress ideas, picks himself off his seat and trots back to the storage room in the back. He does not acknowledge her stare on his back, because Hiei honestly doesn't know why he even bothered to stay and listen to her drivel on about things he never liked.

Hiei also doesn't acknowledge that two hours had passed since he sat at her table.

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**iii.**

"Actually, no mocha latte today, Hiei."

Eyebrow raised, he gives her an odd look. It's dark underneath her eyes and they're so conspicuous without her smile to crinkle her eyes for that extra bit of happiness on her face. Her posture seems to lack the usual energy of odd little bounces and skips he's so used to seeing. Even her hair seems to drop, like it's a tail of a dog and it moves accordingly to its owner's mood.

"Hn?" he grunts-slash-asks her because Hiei just cannot do the word _nice _justice and he has no intentions of doing so now.

She knows what he means. "I'm a little sick today." When she sniffles, Hiei gives her a look of disgust and is more than tempted to take a step back. Kurama always says his immune system is top notch, and Hiei plans to uphold its reputation. "I normally don't get ill often, but I think all this wedding planning is getting a bit too much for me lately." For some sort of emphasis, Botan slumps down on the first chair she sees: it's the one right in front of the counter and Hiei's grimacing about it already.

"You should know better than to come here then," he critically says, taking a jab at her. "You look like you can hardly stay awake anymore. I'm surprised you haven't collapsed yet."

She winces and he feels nothing. "It's not that bad…" she sheepishly brings up, gingerly, as if he would bite her like some deranged dog. "I had enough energy to walk all the way here after my meeting, so I figured why not stop by anyway."

Hiei frowns. "I know you have more common sense than that, I hope." If Mukuro knew of her sickness, she would have a field day and go on about hygiene and the immune system—and he's not willing to sit through that. "You're better off going home."

"Are you worried?" she teases, her eyes looking a tad bit brighter than before. Botan clutches her binder closer as she smiles.

Him caring? That seems gross. Immediately, his lips slant downward into a grimace: it's not too annoyed, but not too concerned. It's just displeasure, he thinks convincingly to himself. "Hardly. I just do not want to be held accountable for letting in someone who will affect the customers."

Used to pouting, Botan does it again today. "Have a little mercy on a sick person, will you? I worked my hardest on this wedding, so cut me some slack!"

"Maybe when you leave, I will take it into consideration."

"_Hieeeeei_," she whines in her stuffy-nosed voice and he blinks in distaste. His name is tainted now. "Just for that, I'm going to annoy the heck out of you during the reception, mister!"

Scoffing, he casts her a sardonic glance and flatly rebuts, "You already excel in that." A long two seconds stretch out. "And now that you've given me a warning, I'll be sure to be sparse as much as possible." And if he's lucky, he can stick to Kurama's side like glue and let him be the one to deal with the woman—heavens know how Kurama can handle her better than Hiei could, though, it's not like Hiei has practiced the virtue of patience as well as Kurama.

"_Ooooh_, if only I weren't sick…!" she eventually trails, looking like someone from those stupid zombie shows the fool Kuwabara likes to skip over on the television. "Well, regardless—" She props her binder on the table and searches through the first few dozen sheets of badly-scribbled notes. "—I'm just going to look over inventory real quick, make a few new changes, and then I'll go home."

"Wouldn't it be better if you did that at home?" Hiei ends up droning to her from the counter, bored.

Even when she's sick and stuffy-nosed and probably has an itchy throat with all the other symptoms, she still beams at him with her teeth. "I like it here! There's something homey and comfortable about it that I enjoy."

Mukuro's café? _Homey_? _Comfortable_? Hiei looks at her like she's grown six heads and seven limbs and a bushy mustache. This place, he admits, serves a semblance of peace for him on some days, but often, the influx of people and the laxness of order around here, Hiei feels, leaves much to be desired. He's not offending Mukuro because he knows she purposely let it be this way: the years probably softened her up, he reasons.

He looks up, ready to retort something, but all signs of it dies on the tip of his tongue when he sees Botan hunching over, vigorously writing more nonsense he doesn't understand. Hiei grunts softly to himself with a movement of his shoulders; notices the lack of customers during this time and quietly prepares a cup.

After several agonizing minutes of muttering to himself, he strodes to Botan's table and sets a cup on a spot where she won't accidentally send it tumbling. Inquisitively abandoning her work briefly to spare him a look where he can see nothing but curiosity brimming, she nearly opens her mouth and—

"Speak nothing of it," he silences her off, terse, eyes narrowing into slits that promised endless death. "It would be a hassle for the buffoon and his woman if you were to miss their ceremony when it's so close. Like I have stated prior, I will not be held accountable."

Despite being a little bit confused, Botan smiles and resumes work.

Hiei wanted to smash something. Did he really just make _green tea_ for her?

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**iv.**

"A different binder today," he gruffly remarks, giving her the usual mocha latte with extra cream just the way she always requests it. The binder, this time, is a disgusting shimmery purple: sort of like her eyes, but a bit more neon.

She brings the cup to her lips and she smiles into the rim. "I'm planning another wedding this time. It's kinda my job, remember?" Right, she's a wedding planner. Meanwhile he's here, listlessly standing at a register for lords-know-how-long and preparing coffee like one of those dead-end workers, but at least he has some _tact _and doesn't complain about it. The pay is good, he likes to remind himself. "This time it's, get this: a wedding for Kurama and Maya! I know, big shocker, right?"

Not really, because Kurama likes to keep his relations private. "Right," he drones once more, not really caring. It's Kurama's life, not his.

"You should be more excited—you two are best friends!" she proclaims to his face, sounding indignant because Kurama couldn't be here to be indignant himself. "Best friends should be more supportive like… Yusuke and Kuwabara! Kuwabara held his tongue the _entire _time through Yusuke's wedding."

_That's rather commendable for the oaf_, Hiei thinks but doesn't say aloud. "I'm insulted that your idealistic image of friendship compared Kurama and I to those two fools," he grits. "Our camaraderie—" Botan rolls her eyes. "—is unlike theirs."

"How so?" she humors him, idly penciling in more ideas on that notebook of hers.

His arms cross over his chest. "For one: we are not stupid." It's a wonder how their combined teamwork is quite teeth-clenching. Hiei thinks back to their old days together, a semblance of nostalgia in him. The memories seem to pass by in sepia like those old-aged movies.

She almost bursts into giggles but she settles with a low snicker, which really isn't any better. "Kurama, yes. You, also yes, except you're much more…"

"More…?" Hiei echoes, testily, lowly with a dangerous light in those savage red eyes of his.

"More—" Knowing better, she stops in the nick of time and he isn't pleased at all. "—verbally-constipated like I told you before!" He wonders what she was thinking of saying prior. He watches her tap her pencil at her chin. "But y'know, you've been talking more lately, so I guess I shouldn't say that anymore."

Struck silent, Hiei, stunned, mulls over how his sentence quota seemed to have been broken today. Hell broke out earlier than expected, so it would seem. Is that why the room is so cold today?

"Guess you must be softening up then!" giggles a perky Botan, one of her hands covering the curling of her lips. Whimsically, she hums. He wished she wouldn't. "Anyways, as you were saying about you and Kurama being the superior _quote-on-quote_ best friends?" Her pencil tip scribbles out more infernal dresses and he observes it, grumpy.

"Hn. Two: we do not rely on nonsensical arguments and idiotic displays of aggression to showcase our—" Hiei mockingly jeers at her. "—_friendship_."

If she heard the heavy dripping sarcasm, Botan kept it to herself. "Alright, you made your two points loud and clear." Dramatically, she slides him a very exasperated look. "I am wrong. You and Kurama are superior, and Yusuke and Kuwabara can't hold an ember to your blazing flame of friendship."

"Don't push it, woman."

"I have a name," she simply replies back, and leaves the conversation at that. He welcomes it; ends up aimlessly listening to her scratchy pencil.

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**v.**

She seems to skirt her gaze elsewhere whenever he glances at her.

"Thank you," she cordially, somewhat stiffly, tells him, taking the cup of her usual in her hands and immediately skidding to a table that seems rather far away from him. Head canting, he squints briefly at her hunching back and red-tipped ears. Then he ponders inwardly if she's sick again; he did give her a mouthful last time she was.

When thirty minutes passed and he readies himself with a broom for sweeping (_Mukuro had said she doesn't trust anyone else with sweeping duty and Hiei grimly noticed the relief in the other workers' faces when he exited her office that day_), Botan seemed adamant on keeping her back to him when he approaches near her table.

Hiei doesn't speak of it: it would be awkward—though, he says to himself, _she's _the one making it awkward. Ridding further thoughts from his head, he mundanely sweeps up most of the place. Other people visiting didn't mind as he came about to sweep the underneath of their tables; neither did Botan, he notes, and then he notes her uneasy shoulders and uncomfortable eyes.

"Are you ill again?" he idly asks her once he reaches her table again, broom lifeless in his hand.

She swallows, which baffles him because her cup has been emptied for a while. "No. Why do you ask?"

Hiei shoves a hand into his pocket. "Anyone can see your discomfort from five miles away. Even a blind person could be capable of the feat." Her ears are red again, and so is her face—really, what's going on with her? Sickness is nothing to be embarrassed about. If it was him who got sick with his impeccable immune system, now _that _would be embarrassing.

"O-Oh, it's probably just wedding planning jitters again! You know what it did to me last time!" Botan doesn't really squeal that often, which is remarkably fascinating, but she just squealed now and that's unusual, Hiei found.

"I don't see why your frivolous hobbies are that exciting if you're going to suffer for it," he dryly says.

Botan regains some color in her, and her eyes reflect flames. "It's not a hobby! And it's not frivolous either! It's a serious job that I love!" That's how Botan works: always seeking happiness from making people's happiness happen. Seems silly to him, and he knows he probably won't understand that, ever.

He really can't. "Whatever the case, it doesn't seem worth it to me."

"Because you've never tried to seek for happiness yourself, Hiei!" she chides him hotly, eyes slanting. "I love this job because I love seeing others happy. Seeing people look for their happily-ever-afters together, that's a wonderful thing. It brings me joy to see union between people in love."

"Again, I do not care." The thought bristles him.

Botan harrumphs and turns her face from him. "Sometimes I wonder why I—" Her eyes are suddenly wide and she shoves her palms over her mouth, alarmed at herself. His ears may have caught a crack caused by her neck turning to face him—would be unfortunate if she were to develop a broken neck. "Never-mind," she speaks through her hands, the sentence coming out slightly mumbled. "Forget it." Her hands are back on the table. "Agree to disagree, right?" Her smile seems a bit dimmed, but he pays no further heed. It doesn't concern him, he reminds himself.

Hiei leaves her alone for the rest of the day, and Botan buries herself in her work.

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**vi.**

Languidly, Hiei has taken a habit of watching her from his peripheral. She, in return, has taken to sitting with her back facing him as she worked, studiously marking margins and lines with her bubbly, flowery letters. It falls into a somewhat lackadaisical routine: Hiei watches, Botan works. It used to be: Hiei doesn't care, Botan talks. Funny, how things seem to change.

Her mocha latte is cooling by her binder, Botan herself highlighting certain phrases and numbers that Hiei can't really see because she, abnormally, chooses to sit really far away from him nowadays. Perhaps his sour attitude has finally rubbed off on her. If that were the case, he doesn't really care—in fact, he wouldn't care no matter the reason. When were her affairs his, after all?

So being himself, Hiei says nothing through the span of three hours she'd been housed up here diligently making wedding notes. He amuses himself with endless sweeping or managing the register; and yes, it's really as boring as it sounds. So, when Botan finally, quietly, approaches him at the counter with an emptied cup, Hiei's skepticism is no longer hidden and he gives her a long chilling look.

"Um… I'd like a refill, please?" she, very timidly like a mouse asking for extra cheese, asks him with tucked shoulders and lowering eyes.

He does exactly what she asks for, refilling with the same amount he always gives her with the same amount of milk and the same amount of cream; the same everything. "Refills are free," he manages to say in a low mutter.

"That's generous…" she returns the awkward sentiment, slowly, gently, taking the cup and busies herself into staring at her reflection past the thin line of steam. Why he has to deal with this awkwardness is unfathomable. "I thought you guys would charge for it."

"Contrary to whatever nonsense belief you may have, Mukuro knows what she's doing," Hiei merely responds, loyalty laced in his tone that she caught onto, wiping a glass to pass time.

Botan nods. "I see." Afterwards, he notices her take small sips and he, weirdly, looks at her. "How have you been?" she brings up conversationally, after they've endured five (_super_) long seconds.

He nearly scoffs aloud—_why bother to ask?_ he wants to say. "You ask me this, yet you've been here nearly every day?" he opts on asking instead, sneering in the usual way he always sneers at her. She should know by now that he's fine: hard to be anything else when all he really does is make coffee and sweep.

"It makes good conversation," she smiles at him, suddenly cheeky.

Sighing lowly, he continues to wipe his glass. "Picking conversation starters certainly isn't your forte." He doesn't know why, but he silently contemplates an answer for her regardless. "Fine, to answer your forgetful mind." Hiei can't understand why he bothers with her; he could repeat the same thing three times and she'd still forget.

"Temper, temper," she, to his great dismay and scowling face, singsongs again. She takes another sip, probably her fourth one because she's so damn _slow_, and thinks to him, "But it's good that you're fine! I can't imagine you being _un_fine with how smoothly you run things here. Why, if I weren't aware of it, I'd think you were the only worker here sometimes!"

Alas, it's a shame that Hiei is the only competent-enough worker to comprehend the concept of earliness and regulations. "Don't," he deadpans to her rather seriously. Even if the salary is rewarding, he probably couldn't survive if he were truly working here by himself—even Hiei can only handle so many fools in one area per day.

"Oh, don't be like that, Hiei." Her hand waves the air again, a habit he found to be dangerous near him. "You're hard-working enough to manage by yourself. It's gotten you this far, right? Splendid job, as always!"

Cynically, he snipes, "Do you always coddle people this much, woman?" He always feels weird when he receives compliments—he doesn't like flattery, especially when he's undeserving of it with his many less-than-pleasant traits he never bothered to fix. Why should he?

"I have a name," she, firstly, patiently tells him like he's a child. He makes it a point to ignore her. "And why not? If someone were to compliment me, I'd take it in with pride and swell in happiness! Makes me feel good about myself."

"Ever the optimist." He proceeds to wipe another glass idly by the counter.

"_Someone _has to be," Botan smiles teasingly at him, the rim of her cup hiding her lips.

He musters an empty half-smirk. "Hn."

Soon, it falls into place: she goes back to her table and he goes back to wiping glasses, and the silence is refreshing like a drop of water dew after several dry spells.

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**vii.**

"You've never thought about it before?" she asks him with her usual default smile, stacking her paperwork together neatly. When her eyes gaze at him, he thinks of the jewels he sees whenever he passes by the jewelry store.

"No." He grimaces, uncomfortable, as he sets her refilled cup on her table. "I need no such thing."

Botan looks horrified. He can't exactly blame her for it: the insufferable woman always blabbers on about love and friendship with hearts in her eyes, so it would only make sense for her to act like this when he just told her a firm _no _to—

"Getting married is a wonderful thing!" she exclaims, looking up at him from her chair, brows furrowing. "I may be too hyper about it a lot, but realistically speaking, I've seen weddings and they're _beautiful_." Wistfully, she adverts her eyes and sighs into her cup. "I wish someone would look at me like that someday."

Hiei grunts. "Maybe you can meet your buffoon of an equal when you accept a new charge on your—" He begins to jeer again. "—_job_."

She's uncharacteristically quiet for, maybe, about five minutes, so Hiei goes back to his sweeping before she had asked him for a refill. Then she speaks up again, and her voice is tiny. That's bizarre because she always speaks her mind with volume. "Maybe I already found him."

"Hm?" he absently says, aware that she said something but her words are fuzzy to him.

Her head shakes, dismissive. "Never-mind." So, Hiei shrugs at her. After the clock ticks four o'clock and most of the customers had left, Botan is arguably the only remaining person left aside from him, so he addresses her with an unwelcoming flat look when she questions, "Hiei, what do you think about the color blue?"

_What the hell?_ he wants to ask her, but he knows that would be wasting his breath. "It's decent." She touches her hair—he wonders why she would.

"What about pink?"

"Revoltingly—" Her face seems to dim. "—sweet."

Quizzical, she does a double take. "So… Not bad?" she unsurely asks for confirmation.

"Believe what you want." With that said, he goes back to his sweeping, his strokes a bit furious as he frowns to himself. It's not Hiei-like to spare feelings at all. Maybe the woman's sense of _whatever _she has finally rubbed off on him. Not to mention, Hiei doesn't say words like _sweet_. How revolting indeed.

She smiles, more to herself. "Alright."

Hiei gives her his typical grunt. "Don't tell me you're planning another ludicrous dress idea again."

"Not really…" Awkwardly, she gently shuts her binder. "I was just curious."

"Curiosity killed the cat," he cruelly tells her with a void smirk.

Botan shrugs at his words, slightly nervous, and he's skeptical again. "Well then, consider me dead for what I'm about to do." Piqued, Hiei notices a slight falter in her movements to stand up from her seat, her eyes determined. He's about to scowl at her for acting strange, but she cuts in with a fierce, "I like you, Hiei."

_What the hell what the hell what the hell what the fucking hell—_

With bravado, she squares her shoulders and it's like she's aware of the inevitable outcome that would soon come. Hiei, suddenly, would like to know how bad would getting third-degree burns be.

"_What?_" he bristly hisses, knuckles whitening on his broom. "When did this happen, woman, I demand to—"

"Several months ago," she quickly interrupts, ears pink like he had seen once before and her cheeks glowing. "I… thought it was just a phase, so I said and did nothing for a while. But I sought Keiko for help—" Hiei darkens immensely at the mention of her. "—and she advised that I'd best tell you when my feelings were sorted out."

"_Why?_" he stresses grimly.

"It…" She falters for a moment. "It would only be fair since my feelings involve you and I-I would also like to discuss this as calmly as we can—we're both adults and I trust that we can get through this." So she tells him, yet, she looked as if she wanted to vanish into the floor.

Feeling a massive headache creep at his temples, Hiei miserably resigns himself to the opposite chair from her. He's pretty sure, absolutely, that he can't clean anymore and he hopes Mukuro doesn't come out and witness _whatever the hell_ is going on right now. Hiei can't bring himself to comprehend language today. "Sit," he demands, icily, moody. With widened eyes, she complies like a kindergartner in trouble, and it's probably one of the world's greatest mysteries how she could ever come to like _him_. "I do not understand." Sharply, he glowers, impatient.

"Neither do I, if I'm honest," murmurs Botan, looking rather small in her chair. Her squared shoulders slump, scared, as he angrily regards her with a stare with greater intensity than the sun. "It's… unexpected."

"_Oh, really?_" he retorts, laying the sarcasm thickly. Against himself, his hand plows through his hair, not caring how disheveled it made him. His life seems more disheveled right now than anything. Sourly, he's aware that his cooperation skills haven't kicked in, so he takes a self-soothing exhale through the nose before asking again like a broken record, "How?"

_Why? How?_ These two seem to pop up the most to him.

"I know," she says gravely. "I know I shouldn't, but it happened anyway." She says that as if it's something bad. Does the woman like him or not? Only she could be capable of something so humiliatingly confusing, he inwardly scoffs. "You're always grumpy and mean—" He places a hand on his face. "—to me, and I never liked that. But…"

"But…?" he tries to coax, his patience thinning by the second.

"But you're more than that," she finalizes, something akin to heartfelt in her eyes. Uncomfortably, Hiei shifts in his seat."I… I know you wouldn't sit for several hours listening to me talk if I was just someone," Botan bravely says with slightly shaking shoulders. "And… You wouldn't make tea for someone sick if I was just someone." Trying to maintain eye contact with him (_and he's awkwardly trying to advert his eyes as subtly as possible_), she goes to amend, "I'm not saying that I'm special to you, Hiei, but… I hope, at least, you consider me a friend with all things considered."

Only Botan would be stupid enough to friendzone herself. The woman simply has no tact, or brains. "Sounds as if you've practiced this," he replies after a while, ignoring how her eyes resolutely shine beneath the fluorescent lights.

Her fingers fidget on her lap. "Well… I had a feeling I already knew what your answer would be," she softly admits. "I'm certainly not a genius, but I'm not dumb."

_Wrong. Wrong wrong wrong_— "Hn. It's rude to assume conclusions when feelings are on the line. Even I know that." His gaze sharpens, but his posture lacks intimidation and the usual .

"What do you mean?" she sighs to him, weary, probably thinking the worst already and Hiei didn't even say a damn thing yet about her lack of tact.

He doesn't know what to say back, surprisingly. "I don't know yet," he says in the end, hands limp by his side unsurely. He truly doesn't—he never foresaw this. He expected mindless sweeping of the floor, delivering cups of coffee for customers, Botan's senseless chatter: all the usual. While they've talked, Hiei's never been aware of _her _before.

She smiles, and it's like something broke for her and something bittersweet fills his chest. "It's okay, Hiei. Please don't force yourself."

When he leaves the table, Botan continues to smile with closed eyes.

.

.

**viii.**

When she came in today, Hiei is adamant on making things stay the way they were, the way everything was _supposed _to stay. He hands her the usual order, face void of anything but quiet snark, and she accepts with that small smile that somehow always appears sunlit. But despite his attempts at maintaining the normalcy, Botan doesn't say anything to him this time as she ushers herself to a table at the far window. He frowns to himself—a quiet Botan is not apart of this cycle of normalcy that he'd been accustomed to. She always talked to him.

It feels a little bare. He shrugs to himself. _Who cares? _

Two hours pass and another shifts by, and Botan still hasn't bothered to say anything to him. The unfamiliar silence is refreshing for Hiei—yet, he still hasn't broken the habit of watching her in his peripheral, so the routine they had unspokenly shared is half the same: Hiei still watches, Botan still works.

"I'm sorry!" she apologizes during the third passing hour when his broom countered her foot on accident. Her pencil, which is an ugly green with stars all over, rolls to the floor—and he looks at it rather than her; is also the first to grab it instead of her. She's mildly, pleasantly, surprised. "Thank you…?"

"Hn," he grunts the usual grunt to her. His hand dips and drops the accursed eyesore on her palm. By now, he's noticed Botan's talking to him again: it suddenly feels okay again. Their routine is back. (_Sort of, Hiei rethinks, as he looks at her face squirm with many emotions over the wooden abomination on her hand._)

"I never asked for you to pick it up, though," she pointedly responds to his silence with, one of her eyebrows daring to arch at him. _Go ahead and deny it_, it looked like she wants to say.

He doesn't know either, truthfully. So, he takes up her unsaid request. "Don't see it as a good deed." (_Heavens forbade him to be nice._) "I merely didn't want to clean up more than what I have to."

Good-naturedly, she gives an unsophisticated chortle. "Alright." Her eyes soon stare at her cup and, knowingly, he follows and swipes it gruffly. "Thank you!~" she wings the cheery atmosphere with another singsong tune that's borderline annoying.

He walks away to the machines and he can tell she's smiling at him again. All is well again, Hiei reassures himself as he prepares more mocha latte with extra cream.

.

.

ix.

Next time she came over, the binder is a dark whimsical red—Hiei thinks about the roses that Kurama likes to grow all over his home. His thoughts say _Hn _at it when she brings it over whilst he prepares her usual before she can even open her mouth.

"By now, it's obvious what you want," he tells her with a nonchalant roll of his eyes when she gives him a look. He makes sure it's the same temperature she likes it at, because he noticed that Botan smiles largely when her drink warms her up on a cool day. He notices a lot of things: like how she tends to leave her cup alone for a while when she's half-emptied it, pouring herself into work, or how she likes to take little sips in the beginning before being more daring and gulping the other half. She's a strange girl.

She makes that stupid cat face again. "Oh dear, I guess I'm getting too conspicuous then!

"I'm astounded that you know what conspicuous means."

"You have the wrong person, I'm not Kuwabara," she pouts firmly.

He lazily trails his eyes along the counter edge, no longer too productive. "Never thought you would push an insult onto that oaf."

"Psh!" She sticks her nose in the air. "I would never! It's just that it sounds like something you _would_ tell him." She pulls the same matter-of-factly tone with him again, and he won't tell her but he's a bit irked she knows that too well.

"Which makes me question your inability to comprehend common sense."

"How does this relate to common sense?" Her eyes squint at him.

"Common sense would be sparing the oaf's feelings by not pointing out that I would insult him." He pauses for a moment. "And that includes if his presence were here or not. You're too much of a fool to insult anyone, given any circumstances." She's too kind for that; he became aware of it for a while.

Her sip this time is a rather long one, and she looks at him for a long time, inspecting. He tries to resist the urge to squirm. "You think you know me that well too, hm, Hiei?"

He knows that she likes warm mocha latte with extra cream, he knows that she's something of a justice hero for union (_the word disgusts him_)—that she likes eyesore colors like loud pinks and purples, that she likes to consume her drink until half-emptied and she doesn't drink it again until she's done with her work, that she often comes by midafteroon. Many things. "I'm perceptive. Unlike you." His voice has gone soft on her.

"I see," hums Botan as she trots to a table. He doesn't point out that it's a table closer to him.

.

.

x.

This time when she comes in as usual, approaches him as usual, smiles as usual, he does the usual things as well: grunt, readies her order, and approaches her after his sweeping. All seems well, and she's been entertaining him with a story from her latest new wedding she'd helped plan. Hiei has adopted a habit of visiting her table when he sweeps, and Mukuro never seems to mind whenever she steps out of her office to for periodic checkups.

"—then Ayame threw the bouquet in the air and everyone lunged for it!" Her laughter sometimes interferes with the story, but he doesn't mind as he's grown accustomed to it. "Hinageshi caught it, but I think she accidentally elbowed someone behind her too! I saw someone kneel over! That poor woman…"

Amused, he absently sweeps underneath the empty table next to her as he listens. He makes a small noise, gentler than the usual grunts, and she continues.

"But all in all, it was a lovely wedding and I'm glad to be a part of it." Her lips carry a soft smile, which turns a bit solemn. "I wish I could've caught it—but oh well, wishful thinking won't get me anywhere, ha!"

He sweeps the dust off the legs of the empty chair nearby. "You need to work on your patience better, woman."

She makes a face at him calling her _the word_ again, but lets it slide this time, feeling merciful as she drowns in her woes. "Sometimes I can't help it. I give and give a lot, so sometimes, I can't help but wish for a chance for me to _get_." Her hands pick up her, as expected, half-emptied cup and sips slowly at the other cooling half.

Hiei is quiet for several moments; it extends into a silent minute, then two minutes, then three somehow became five minutes. His sweeping does not cease. "You really want that?"

She surveys him, trying to see if he's up to anything. "Yes."

Upon her answer, he sighs and begins to steel himself. "I can't give you much." Her gaze soon loosens, neglecting to carry suspicion, and when he looks back, he thinks of amethysts and flowers. "But this—" His chin gestures to the cup she holds. "—I can. As long as you always stop by, Botan."

He thinks back to when there had been a drift between them; it felt weird. He had relished in the quietness, always, and now here he is, allowing her permission to keep coming back while knowing she would find some way to break the silence.

Botan finally looks up and beams—he thinks not even the sun can outshine this smile. It's always a fact that she's a bright girl; she's much too happy and optimistic. But this place looks like home with her here. "I'd love that, Hiei." She looks silly, beaming such a big grin.

"Hn." He takes her cup and goes back to the machines.

When she left for home that evening, she had left her number on a piece of sticky note on the table for him to keep.


End file.
